For many the worker occupation of the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors plant on December 5 may have come as a surprise. But for US workers who are facing a very bleak economic horizon – the Chicago sit-down strike has ignited a spark amongst workers fed up with corporate bailouts and job losses. In the midst of an overwhelming financial crisis, massive layoffs and a deepening economic recession workers are left with little other option that to take direct action in order to defend their rights.
BY MARIE TRIGONA
Z Net
INTERNATIONAL
Posted by Bulatlat
For many the worker occupation of the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors plant on December 5 may have come as a surprise. But for US workers who are facing a very bleak economic horizon – the Chicago sit-down strike has ignited a spark amongst workers fed up with corporate bailouts and job losses. In the midst of an overwhelming financial crisis, massive layoffs and a deepening economic recession workers are left with little other option that to take direct action in order to defend their rights.
In Chicago, a group of workers decided to occupy their plant – to demand severance pay and benefits after being abruptly fired. Inside the plant, 50 workers rotated during the occupation – sitting firmly on fold out chairs and taking care of the now quiet machinery. Outside, supporters and fellow unionists carried banners in solidarity with the Chicago sit-down strike stating “Bank of the America gets bail out, workers get sold out.”
The workers at the Chicago Republic Windows and Doors plant are setting an example for the millions of people who are set to lose their jobs in the US recession. They are the voice of workers who see the emergency bailout plans for Wall Street as unfair and ultimately hurt working America. One of the winners on Wall Street, Bank of America, the second largest bank in the US and major beneficiary to the government’s bailout plan for banks, refused to loan the company Republic Windows and Doors 1.5 million dollars the company owed to the 200 workers in severance and vacation pay.
“Millions of workers in the United States are seeing their jobs torn away from them or their work hours reduced. Most are just swept under the rug by management,” says Daniel Gross, organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World. The unemployment rate in the US has hit a 15-year-high with nearly 1.9 million jobs lost thus far in 2008.
With the economy showing no signs of recuperating in the coming months, unfair layoffs and fraudulent bailouts may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Gross continues, “The Republic Windows and Doors workers would have gone that way too. But instead they took the simple, elegant step of sitting-down and occupying their factory.”
Worker occupations have been used since the onset of the industrial revolution as a strategy for workers to defend themselves against deplorable work conditions, unsafe workplaces and firings. In Latin America, workers have used the factory occupation not only to make their demands heard but to put into practice worker self-management.
Argentina’s workers lived through a similar crisis eight years earlier, during the nation’s worst financial crisis ever in December 2001.
Growing unemployment, capital flight, and industry break-up served as the backdrop for factory takeovers. Unemployment hit record levels – over 20% unemployed and 40% of the population unable to find adequate employment. The result was hundreds of factories and businesses occupied by the workers. In most cases the workers occupied their workplace to demand unpaid salaries, severance pay, social security and past due vacation time. In many cases the occupation was a guarantee that the owners wouldn’t be able to ransack machinery and remaining stock to later sell off. But their demands steadily grew to safe guard their jobs. With little hope that bosses would ever return to pay workers what they owed, workers devised plans to start up production with no boss or owner what so ever.
